We recently connected with Melissa Kelly and have shared our conversation below.

Melissa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later

I come from a long line of self-employed entrepreneurs. My grandfather started a business that still employs generations of my uncles and cousins. After decades of steady W2 employment, my parents also struck out on their own and started businesses they believed in. While I started my LLC at the end of college, I really could not figure out how to make it anything more than a “side hustle.” A few years out of college, after jumping around a few jobs, I finally settled into something that was flexible, fun, and fiscally safe. Or so I thought.

I plugged away, working full time for my employer and moonlighting on the side, enjoying my little business but never believing it could support me. I clung to my relatively low paying day job because I liked it, but what I really liked was a paycheck every two weeks. I don’t know if I would have ever had the guts to leave the security of W2 employment, but one day I was called in to HR and was unceremoniously laid off as a cost-cutting measure. I was good at my job and well liked in my organization (so much so that I was almost immediately hired back on a freelance basis) — and so it turns out the security of a steady paycheck is pretty much an illusion.

After the rug was pulled out from under me I was in free-fall for a while. I made a half-hearted attempt at a job search, but my view of the world had been irreparably cracked. As I started freelancing full time, I began to see that having a large pot of diverse clients is actually significantly “safer” than relying on a single employer for my income. I was very lucky to have the “side hustle” to step in to full time. Once I flipped the switch and poured my 40 hours a week in to my own business instead of someone else’s, it turned out the sky was the limit.

In many ways, I think there’s no way to be prepared for entrepreneurship – it is scary and in some ways we’re all making it up as we go along. But it is also limitless, which is amazing. I think that I will always wish that I had started full-time sooner, but I will always be glad I had nurtured that side hustle all along.

Melissa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a commercial and portrait photographer with a fondness for higher education and non profits. My grandfather was a hobby photographer, and though he died when I was a kid, he made a huge impression on me. He and my grandmother bought me my first 35 mm camera, and the rest, as they say, is history. One of my first jobs was developing film at the local one-hour photo mat. I learned about cameras from the sales people I worked with. I took photos for the school paper, and enrolled in a community college photography class as a high school student. After that I continued to study photography and photojournalism when I got to college. Somehow, though, I never imagined I would make a living as a photographer.

After a few photography jobs and a healthy side-hustle, I had the opportunity to launch full time in to my photography business. While I started with portraits and babies and weddings, I ultimately settled in to commercial and marketing photography, primarily in the higher education space. I love to photograph regular people — students, faculty, and more — and tell a story about a program or campus that really shows off heart of a community. There’s a passion on campuses that is intoxicating and inspiring, and I feel energized working in those spaces. Everyone I meet is passionate about their work or research — or they are at the beginning of a journey with no limits.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

I’m a firm believer in the Side Hustle! My current business was my Side Hustle for almost 10 years before I took it full time.

On the advice of my dad, I formally started my business a few months after graduating college. I was working a full time job at the time and didn’t have a solid plan for a business. (In fact, the name I chose at the time is one I laugh at!) I had fun playing around building a website and business cards, but I didn’t know a thing about marketing or promotion. I was doing little jobs here and there for family, friends, and other people in my tiny network at the time.

Over about 10 years, my Do Good Work and Be Good to Work With philosophy produced a side hustle that was almost grossing six figures. I had expanded my network exponentially in that time as well. And then the Little Engine that Could was put to the test — I was laid off from my day job. I panicked of course, never believing that my little Side Hustle could support me. I looked for other full time work, but it quickly became clear that pouring myself into entrepreneurship rather than another W2 grind would be a much greater return on my investment.

In that first full year I was able to almost double the gross from the Former Side Hustle and it became clear that this was a thing that would not just let me survive, but thrive.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

All the marketing money in the world is not as valuable as a good reputation. I have spent my time as an entrepreneur cultivating a philosophy of: Do Good Work and Be Good To Work With. After that, the rest falls in to place.

What that means to me is selling a product I really believe in, and working with clients whose mission is one I align with. It’s easy to find the right partners when you’re all working towards a common goal. It’s easy to Do Good Work when you are passionate about it’s objective.

And being Good To Work With is a no brainer — communicate clearly and in a timely manner. Under promise and over deliver. Be proactive where possible. Like yourself. Like what you do. Like who you do it for.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.melissakelly.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/higheredphotographer
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/higheredphotographer
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/melissa-kelly-photography

Image Credits
© Melissa Kelly Photography